great legislative debates

GOP Says Real Issue With Gay Marriage Is It Costs Too Much

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-8 today to advance a bill to repeal DOMA over Republican objections. Not just the usual “becuz Jesus no likey teh gheyz” objections, but for a novel new terrible reason: gay marriage will ruin Social Security! “No one has paid into the Social Security system expecting benefits to be paid to same sex partners,” argued crabass old John Cornyn. Logic whiz Patrick Leahy was then forced to step in and remind the Republicans that, uh, gay people are actually still human? And have always been paying into Social Security like everyone else.

“Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) would actually result in an expansion of federal benefits and spending at a time when we know that federal spending is way out of control and our entitlement programs are unsustainable,” [John Cornyn] told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

The CBO found in 2004 that this wasn’t the case, although even if it did all costs could probably be offset by the federal government purchasing exactly one less F-35 fighter jet or bombing one less village in Pakistan, but anyway here was Leahy’s rebuttal that is so simple it is incredibly depressing that someone had to say this out loud:

“If you have a same sex couple, both of whom have paid into Social Security, both of whom have fulfilled all the things required, that somehow it would be wrong if they got the same benefits as an opposite sex couple would,” [Leahy] said. “Fair is fair. They paid. They should be allowed.”

And in the other corner of the hearing, literacy hero Al Franken is also your new hero of basic history, for painstakingly explaining to Chuck Grassley that humans have not always been following the Pope’s rules for marriage since the dawn of existence, despite popular evangelical myth:

The problem with the ghayez is that they expect to be fabulous into their dotage. That is just too expensive.

El Pinche

Two words: the Duggars

Lionel[redacted]Esq

So, Sen. Cornyn is against anyone having more than one child.

Antispandex

You know if you check the divorce stats that bill board is a total lie, right? I can't for the life of me imagine why our gay brothers and sisters want to join us in the hell that is the American marriage experience. But, I say, welcome to a life of uncomfortable holiday dinners brothers and sisters!

VaWyo

You forgot the part about expanding the number of people in your family that are right -wingers. Good times.

poncho_pilot

for some reason, i imagine that a gay married couple would have an even more awkward time at family functions than the straight married couples. but hey, welcome to the misery.

Actually, it depends on the family. My partner's family was wonderfully accepting. Mine wished a painful death on both of us till they met the partner. Then they decided that I was clearly the evil one who had corrupted a fine, upstanding citizen.

bebecca2298

awww, I have tears in my eyes from your comment. That is so sweet, seriously.

It's OK, bebecca. Things have gotten much better since I was a wee sprog, even if it seems like the fight is endless (it is). Back in my yoof, we just kept trying to be "normal" and failing and being miserable. At least now there's people of goodwill everywhere who recognize that it is wrong to hate someone for loving someone else.

Guppy

"Marriage works, just not your mommy's and daddy's, and it's all your fault!"

That's what I always say. Why shouldn't gays have the same opportunity to be as miserable as me?
Isn't that the real meaning of life? Trapped in a loveless relationship, longing for the sweet peace that death will bring?

Lascauxcaveman

In my experience marriage *does* work. But it takes a helluva lotta work.

It has a whole lot to do with, you know, like, if your partner is terribly injured in a car crash or something, and on the edge of death, and the hospitals won't even let you VISIT your partner or ask for details because "you're not the next of kin."

When you've been in a loving relationship with someone for ten, or twenty years, and people won't even tell you if they're alive or dead because your genitalia look alike, it can make you kinda sorta bitter.

We won't even talk about all the other little nitpicky details, like not having to go through probate when your partner dies, or being kicked out of the home you both built and shared for 30 years because his/her family are the legal next-of-kin, even if they did kick them out 35 years ago and didn't give a shit if they were still alive or dead, at least until they died with a sizeable estate; or child custody, visitation, or adoption rights, or community property provisions when a relationship breaks down after you quit your high-paying job to care for your ill partner.

Details, details.

PeaceWithHonor

So with Cornyn's inability to utter a logical sentence, does this move Rick Perry to the head of the, uh, lone star class?

So Grassley thinks DOMA is for the procreation & with gay sex that is often a challenge. And Senator Al thinks that means we should nix the marriage of oldes cause procreation is unlikely. So then, by logical extension, no marriage for those of us who have been spayed or neutered, too, also????? So then, how about only allowing marriage between a single sperm cell and a single egg – the recently defeated Mississippi fertilization moment momentous on steroids.

YasserArraFeck

and the marriage can be performed by an amoeba….in a very very small church

Lascauxcaveman

The Church of the Holy Amoeba?

I hope the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not a jealous god.

bebecca2298

and women past child-bearing age should not be allowed to marry but for men, their sperm never dries up so no age-limit.

KathrynSane

Do these people really have no idea how much gay marriage would help the economy? You just know their weddings and receptions are going to be faaaabuloooous!

This job creation boom can be clearly measured at the charming inns of Vermont.

chascates

First of all, it's our geometric increase in defense spending that is unsustainable. Second, America is one of the few first-world countries not to recognize same sex unions. Third, these weddings should be totally fabulous!

Republicans are against gay marriage mostly because it might limit the supply of available hookups when they're in the mood for some down-low "constituent services."

Guppy

I hear gays are more likely to be poly anyway, but that still takes away the "dirtiness" aspect that gets these Republicans off.

Indiepalin

Of course Mr. Cornyn is correct. Now if things were different, if the country was undergoing an economic boom like in the late nineties, then these pragmatic republicunts would be the first to say "okay, we can afford it now, so let's all vote for gay marriage".

Franknflower

If two men get married and one of them dies, benefits are paid to one person. If two men get married to two women and both men die, benefits are paid to both women. Doesn't that cost twice as much? I know there is an error in logic and math there somewhere, but Evangelical Republicans are not known for there thinking abilities, and so this argument should make perfect sense to them.

Lascauxcaveman

That math is sound except for the false equivalency of 2 gay men = 2 straight men.

In the eyes of the current system, 2 gay men = 0, as far a survivor's benefits are concerned. They simply don't exist. The proposed new benefits, which are utterly fair, create a new class of benefit recipients potentially equaling 1/2 of all gay marrieds. Men and women.

So it would be more expensive. But fair.

coolhandnuke

The 2010 courtship and Teabag lovefest that gave us West, Walsh et al, will end up being a very costly union. After these turds are voted out next year, they will all receive 140k a year for life.

fuflans

that's depressing.

McRibzgood

I wish I lived in a time women were treated like chattel.

(KIDDING!!!!)

jqheywood

What's all this fuss I keep hearing about women chatting? What's wrong with that?

Guppy

Just find one into pony play, close enough.

comrad_darkness

Where is the Al Franken cloning project? We need a dozen of him quick before civilization decays beyond hope. If it hasn't already.

What DON'T they do? They don't buy Precious Moments figurines. Which makes them first-class in my book.

kissawookiee

Try to force their straight neighbors' civil rights into a dog-whistle ballot measure?

DaRooster

"Marriage Works"??

They have not checked the stats on that for about a half a century have they?
Hopefully for DaRooster… the third one does.

Judith_Priest

Be of good cheer. My 4th one has worked for over 20 years … and we're both difficult annoying megageeks who know everything and are in bad moods all the time!

First marriage: 2 years
Second marriage: 4 years
Third marriage: 8 years
… around Year 16 I was a little worried about this one, but we managed to break the Curse of Powers of 2.

DaRooster

I am already past my longest (3 yrs- the first one) so I am thankful…
I used to be the one in a bad mood all the time… but she has given me some peace… however sometimes I think I took it from her.

V572625694

Remember McCain thrashing around for reasons to oppose the repeal of DADT? It's really pure emotion bigotry with these guys, isn't it? The same way you can irrefutably demolish every argument a bigot makes that black people are inherently inferior to whites, and yet they keep coming back with another one. "Oh yeah, well how come they haven't won a gold medal in biathalon yet, henghngh?"

If I were a senator and had to address Grassley, I'd say, "I have the greatest respect for the ranking member, and am now going to come over there and punch the ranking member in the throat several times, with the objective of teaching the ranking member a modest lesson about the difference between what is true and what the ranking member wishes were true."

north_of_moscow

Can we just make a gay Social Security then? A really trim, well-groomed Social Security that always seems to be having way more fun than the boring breeders Social Security?

not that Dewey

No gay marriage => no joint tax return => "marriage penalty" not applied to same-sex couples => lost revenue. So, no, asswipe Cornyn. You have it exactly backwards. Allowing marriage equality would actually REDUCE the deficit, which was supposed to be republican's other Holy Grail, besides hating gays. For this and many, many other actually humanitarian reasons, we can't afford not to allow same-sex marriage.

McRibzgood

Ahhh. Gay people. If it weren't for your men and women who would they have to bash…besides black people…and poor…and muslims….and immigrants…and heavy metal….and video games….and school teachers…and Clinton…and the Tele-Tubbies…

You know what Right Wingers hate alot of stupid shit for no reason.

Canmon

But, gay marriage will ruin marriage for straight people, so there will be fewer married people in the end.

So, me and my working partner, who have paid into the system all our lives, would drain the system if either of us was to live and work long enough to pay for all 20 of the Duggars' spawn's retirements, and then expect a few years of retirement ourselves?

Why don't they just say we should die penniless because we're gay, rather than wage war on math?

GOPCrusher

I think it was implied.

WootInTarnation

If we're really Good Gays, the ones who don't "shove it in their faces" and "shove it down their throats," we *should* die penniless, but filled with radiant happiness at having paid into the system that will prevent them from dying penniless.

In fact, I think it's on Page 23 of the Gay Agenda Handbook, v. 2011a1, under Maintaining the Status Quo/Staying Alive. We keep quiet, avoid wearing hot pants and Docs, write scathing letters to the editor about the Bad Gays who dance on floats and hold hands in public, while Good Gays silently adopt and raise their unwanted children (saved in the womb! Thank Jeebus!), pay for their retirement and their public schools, raise property values and renew neighborhoods. In return, they'll only kill a few of us a year. Just as a warning to the Bad Gays, no offense. We're all in this together after all.

Married (man-woman) couples can file a joint return and pay a lower tax rate. Non-heterosexuals couples pay the higher single rates. A tax hike for gayness, if you will. Then there are those benefit for children, which can be used by anyone but are clearly skewed to the man-woman couples.

To everyone who is saying gay weddings would be fabulous, I think you're forgetting about lesbians. Not to stereotype or anything (OK, to stereotype wildly) we'd be seeing a lot more fleece wedding dresses, vegan cupcakes, doggie ring bearers, and happy couples driving off in Subarus.

eh, too much respect for the eminently wrinkled old fartsack from Iowa

Arken

No one paid into the social security system expecting benefits to be paid to me personally either. Because they didn't think about me. The bastards.

Lascauxcaveman

Al Franken is also your new hero of basic history, for painstakingly explaining to Chuck Grassley that humans have not always been following the Pope’s rules for marriage since the dawn of existence

Still, I would kneel to kiss his ring. Al Franken's ring, that is.

ttommyunger

Al may fool somebody with his "tremendous respect and admiration" froofraw but you and I both know that Grassley is a fucking gold-plated moron who couldn't find a bale of hay in a telephone booth.

SheriffRoscoe

Marrying someone of the same gender versus marrying someone of the opposite gender would somehow cost more. They tried this same old, weird, pathetic argument when companies were seriously beginning to consider offering benefits to same-sex partners of employees. It's laughable on it's face. Logic – how does it work again?

Callyson

Actually, a couple of weeks ago Bloomberg BusinessWeek had an article about how gay marriage was a windfall for NY businesses, particularly small businesses.
Why do Republicans hate small business?

grex1949

Al Franken has proven himself to be a worthy successor to Paul Wellstone. I could not be more proud of our junior Senator.

Millennial Malaise

Bernie gets all the attention, so I always forget about the other Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. I'll admit very cursory knowledge of him, but he seems like a relatively good egg. And if you piss off Dick Cheney enough that he told you to "go fuck yourself," you're A-OK in my book!

MinAgain

Not only has "one man, one woman" not been the historical model of marriage, it hasn't even been the Biblical model.

You could see Franken struggling to not sound like a Jewish comedian. He was stepping all over his own timing in order not to seem to "cosmopolitan."

ColonelDoctor

I support gay marriage. For OTHER gay people.

Negropolis

This really is the new argument they are using, since the kind of cultural demonization of it has having diminishing returns, these days. Same thing happened in Michigan when they were trying to repeal benefits for domestic partners (gay and straight) of state workers. They argued the cost angle. The problem was that the benefits are subject to the ruling of a state commission and not the legislature, and the legislature didn't have the two-thirds it needed in both houses to repeal the decision by the commission.

Negropolis

I feel sad that decorum must follow everything ever done in the Senate. You shouldn't have to continually preface every statement you make in the Senate with how your love for your colleague is undying and deep as the Pacific Ocean. He or she should already know that if it's true, and if it's not true, then Senators shouldn't feel obliged to make such false statements. I think "sir/madam/gentleman/lady" should suffice for decorum in that body.

Actually, Cronyn, you dipshit, if two gays or lesbians get married, the spouse's Social Security benefits are reduced, so a married gay couple would actually get less then two single gays. Just like us straight married types.